The next day, after installing the cloth that Rian had managed to acquire over the opening of the intake pipe leading into her Dungeon's reservoir, Lori resolved to not think about the water issue once she finished installing the door of the new elevated water hub shed. After all, it had been boiled, evaporated, and then shone with unseen light to kill dustlife! Even just the evaporation meant the water coming from her reservoir could not have any hypothetical essence of dead bugs in it!

The aqueducts, in the meantime, were still in the middle of being cleaned. Volunteers with experience at climbing where scouring the channels atop the stone structure, removing leaves, dead bugs, and other detritus. Rian was supervising, because Lori had told him under no circumstances was he to actually climb up and do the work himself, lest he fall, crack his head open, and leave her without a functional lord. Riz, next to him, had taken it upon herself to make sure he stayed on the ground.

Technically, with the water hub shed functioning again, there was no reason to bring the aqueducts back into service. People could just get their water from the bath houses like they'd been doing all winter. However, that would no doubt cause congestion in the baths since people were starting to work again. While she'd keep the drinking water accessible in the baths, bringing the aqueducts back into service would keep people from congregating in the baths, especially since filling water containers probably wasn't instantaneous.

Besides, with the laundry area likely to flood soon—at the moment it was still high enough to remain dry, but the level of the river continued to rise—people were probably going to start washing their clothes in the baths again. She wasn't going to make another laundry area—they could just wait it out—but giving her idiots somewhere else to get water from would alleviate the inevitable crowding.

"How much longer before the aqueducts are cleaned?" Lori asked her lord during lunch later that day, before dipping a piece of bread into her soup to eat.

"Optimistically, maybe this afternoon," Rian said, still stirring his own bowl to cool it down. "Realistically, perhaps tomorrow morning. You didn't exactly build the aqueducts with cleaning them in mind." He chuckled for some reason. "That might actually be what you need to build next: convenient access to the aqueduct's channels, so it's easier to do it next time. We really shouldn't clean them only once a year, after all."

Lori twitched and vey determinedly did not think of all the cups of water she'd drank over the year. "That would be a waste of time," she said. "Have the carpenters build some sort of reusable scaffold. Given future construction projects, such would be a more worthwhile investment of time and materials."

"Usually, it's safer to have such things be made of metal," Rian said. "For the sturdiness. Wood that keeps getting assembled and dismantled like that will get worn down eventually."

"It doesn't need to last forever. Just for the year's needs. Perhaps two years, if we're lucky."

"Another permanent temporary solution?"

Lori twitched.

"I know, I know," Rian said, his voice strange. "It makes me cringe inside too."

"Then why bring it up?" Lori ground out.

"To remind us both that it is temporary, and that someday we'll get around to putting in something better and permanent," Rian said with a bright smile. "Eventually."

Lori twitched again. "What else?"

"The door for the water hub shed should be done this afternoon, so you can put it in place then," Rian said. "Work on the farms, both above and below ground as well as mushroom, are progressing well. And I felt I should remind you, but I can take you to see where the coal burners have set up their mounds at your convenience."

Ah. Right, that. "Tomorrow, once I've reactivated the aqueduct," Lori said.

Rian nodded. "We've also started seeing seels coming back up the river again. I've taken the liberty of telling everyone, especially Karina, that no seeling is to be done while the river's still flooded. The current's too dangerous, and even if it wasn't, the added silt makes it hard to be sure of your footing."

"Good. We can afford to wait a few more weeks for fresh seel." Lori paused. "We can, right?"

"Yes, we can," Rian assured. "We still have meat in the cold room. Though in anticipation of needing to refill it, I've had the hunters scouting out the edges of the demesne and keeping an eye out on the beasts out there. It looks like the beasts are starting to calm down, so it should be safe to try and hunt them soon. We might even be able to send someone to River's Fork soon and tell them we didn't try to kidnap their Dungeon Binder."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"While such a message would be appreciated, since my aunt is no doubt worrying, I would rather no one be put at risk for such a thing," Shanalorre said from a little bit away from Lori on the bench.

"Noted, Great Binder," Rian said, nodding towards her. "It's unlikely to happen any time soon. We'll probably be able to take you downriver by boat sooner than we can send a message."

"'Great Binder'?" Lori said, raising an eyebrow.

"I thought I'd give it a shot," Rian said, shrugging. "Don't worry, you're still greater, your Bindership."

Next to Rian, Riz coughed, covering her mouth. At least she knew how to keep disease from spreading.

"Rian, stop being silly and get back to reporting."

"Yes, your Bindership. Speaking of food stores, we might need to make them just a little bit bigger. They were able to last us the winter and then some, but I think it would be better we had more food storage capacity. We should probably make separate storage for the smoked and cured meat in any case."

Lori looked towards the where the cold rooms were. "I'll see about expanding current storage," she said. "Now would be the best time to expand them, while most of them are empty." She'd have to do this carefully. Her idea had been to expand the cold room downward, which could be dangerous since they used solidified air to cool the food now instead of ice. While the former didn't melt into water, it was unbreathable. If she wasn't careful, the concentration of unbreathable air could become dangerous.

Hmm… perhaps she could build upwards, instead? That way any unbreathable air would be level with the door and be circulated out. Technically, building upwards wouldn't be any different than building downwards, in regards to structural stability… after construction was finished. During construction, however, she'd need to add pillars and arches to the current cold room so that it would be able to support the floor of the expansion above…

Something to consider later. "Is there anything else?"

"Nothing important, though I feel I should remind you that we'll need two new houses built," Rian said. "For the petitioners."

Ah, yes, that had slipped her mind. "I remember," Lori lied. "I'll build it after the cold room expansion. I'll have the material for it by then."

Rian hummed. "Well, that should be everything for now… though as your lord, I think you should take a break this afternoon and plan the order you're going to build things, maybe reread your almanac as well to remind you of what resources you have there."

Lori frowned, but nodded. Well, she did need to think about her approach to expanding the cold rooms. "Fine. Inform me when the door is finished so I can install it."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian chirped.

Lori pointed at his still half-full bowl. "Now eat before that goes all the way cold." Her own bowl of soup was conspicuously empty.

"I point out that I can't really eat when I'm doing most of the talking."

"Less talking, more eating."

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Installing the door to the new water hub shed was simple enough. With the carpenters having measured the doorway, all Lori really needed to do was sink the hinges into the stone and anchor them in place. After that, the water hub shed was complete, and she could finally activate all the bindings to bring it into operation. She watched it for a while, making sure everything was functioning as intended before closing the door and locking it with stone to prevent it from swinging open, sealing the edges as best as she could to keep out any inquisitive bugs

That done, Lori got back to planning how she was going to approach the cold room expansion. While it would be easier to expand underground, she ultimately decided it would be safer in the long term to expand upwards. She had enough experience with excavating to be reasonably certain she could do so safely, and building upwards was safer in the event of a potential flood, since it meant their food would hopefully be above water level. And while they no longer used ice to keep the cold room chill, this would also allow any condensation to flow down to ground level and be dealt with relatively easily instead of gather in an underground pit and potentially making a pool.

…

Lori made a note to have wooden steps on any stairs so that it wouldn't become slippery with condensation or ice. Well, less slippery than just stone, at least…

The first cold room would probably take some time as she took care and did it slowly for safety's sake, but expansion of subsequent cold rooms should be faster once she had more experience.

She also reread her almanac, as Rian had suggested. The binding for making a steady supply of solidified air was tempting to add to the cold rooms as an integrated feature, but without the sort of pressure vessels it specified, it was still a bit unfeasible. Still, it was something she could try and have the smiths make later. They still had some anatass, after all.

Perhaps she could experiment using very, very thick stone and see how viable that was? As long as it produced enough solidified air to break even, it should be more than enough to maintain the temperature of the cold rooms. Well, she'd try it later when she had time to experiment.

A dehydration shed to accelerate the drying of vigas, fruits, mushrooms and anything else that might be feasibly dried, however, was well within her current resources. It would be far slower than the dedicated desiccator she'd made for the vigas during the first harvest, but it would require far less oversight on her part beyond imbuement. Given that it would probably start raining soon, it would also be useful for the drying of any gathered deadfall.

Her reread of the almanac didn't bring anything immediately useful to her attention, though she did find and make note of the binding for using lightningwisps to keep away bugs. After the water hub shed, she should put that on the entryway to her dungeon, once she'd properly read through it and was certain it wasn't harmful to her idiots. And the baths. And the shelter. And around the open channels of the aqueduct…

Oh, welding metal together with lightningwisps would probably be useful at some point—it talked about welding broken tools together—but she was unlikely to need to do her own welding any time soon. Though… would this process work with glass? The problem with metal was that it couldn't be shaped by earthwisps unless it had reached an almost molten state, and glass was similar. Could she use this process to selectively heat parts of glass enough to make it malleable without needing to melt the entire mass?

It would be something for her to test once she had a free moment… and when Shanalorre was no longer in the demesne to potentially see it.